7 Children Die: Murder Or Curse?

BOVINA, Texas - One by one, Diana Lumbrera buried each of her six children, weeping and fainting, begging on her knees for her little ones to come back.

Each of the children died before age 5, and doctors ascribed each death to natural causes. Diana Lumbrera knew better than that; she had been cursed by her former mother-in-law, she said.

But now authorities say the deaths were neither natural nor supernatural. They say Diana Lumbrera, 32, killed her children.

She has been convicted of killing one 4-year-old son; she faces charges that she killed three daughters, a son and the daughter of a cousin; authorities are investigating the death of another son.

Her friends and family insist a terrible mistake is being made.

``She was a loving mother, and she took care of those children,'' said her aunt, Elodia Flores. ``She worked hard every day and made those children No. 1 in her life. I just don't believe she killed those children.''

-- Joanna Garza, age 3 months, died Nov. 30, 1976. The cause: ``strangulation due to asphyxiation due to convulsive disorder.''

-- Jose Lionel Garza, 2 1/2 months, died Feb. 13, 1978. The cause is listed as undetermined.

-- Melissa Garza, 3, died Oct. 2, 1978. The cause: ``asphyxia due to

aspiration of stomach contents.''

-- Erica Aleman, Lumbrera's 6-week-old cousin, died Oct. 8, 1980. Medical records are missing.

-- Melinda Ann Garza, 2, died Aug. 17, 1982. The cause is listed as ``heart failure due to increased taxation on a case of congenital heart disease.''

-- Christopher Daniel Lumbrera, 5 1/2 months, died March 28, 1984, of what doctors said was septicemia - a blood infection.

-- Jose Antonio Lumbrera, 4, died May 1, 1990. The cause: ``asphyxia due to smothering.''

For 14 years, as Lumbrera's children died one after another, Texas authorities suspected nothing. The death certificates gave them no reason to be suspicious.

Then authorities in Garden City, Kan., where Lumbrera had moved, were handed a murder case. Doctors there attributed Jose Antonio's death to smothering, and a jury agreed in October, convicting Lumbrera of murder. She was sentenced to life in prison.

The Kansas charges prompted a massive investigation into the other deaths, resulting in the five murder indictments in three West Texas counties.

``A death certificate may say death due to heart failure. Everyone who dies suffers from heart failure,'' said Parmer County, Texas, District Attorney Johnny Actkinson, who will prosecute Lumbrera in an upcoming trial.

``The question is, what caused the heart failure?''

Actkinson says there was no cover-up; he suggested that those who issued the death reports probably did not want to think the worst.

``Those kids' deaths were such a horrible state of affairs that no one considered a mother would murder her own children. So the doctors look for another way to explain it. It's human nature.''

Lionel Garza, Lumbrera's second husband and father of four of the dead children, says he was shocked by her conviction in Jose Antonio's death.

``I thought my kids died of natural causes. Now the doors of question are open, and the pain is rushing back in,'' he said.

Still, Garza, who filed for divorce from Lumbrera in 1980, two years after their third child's death, apparently harbored suspicions about his wife, according to authorities acquainted with his grand-jury testimony.

``Lionel was suspicious of Diana after the third death,'' said Bovina Police Chief Gary Coleman. ``Especially since he said he was playing with the child (Melissa Garza) that morning before going to work.

``He said the child was healthy and he didn't detect anything wrong. Thirty minutes after he arrives at work, he's called and told the child has died.''

Garza said the allegations ``gave me a lot of anger. But now I just want the truth. I want to know if she killed my babies.''

Virginia Bribiesca, Lumbrera's sister, says she was there when Garza's mother cursed her, telling Lumbrera her children would die at their mother's hands. ``I heard the woman say it,'' she says.

Garza denies it ever happened. His wife ``never said anything to me about the children being cursed by my mother,'' he said.

Parmer County Deputy Sheriff Richard Bonham says the witchcraft argument is irrelevant: ``In our investigation that's no defense of what she has done.''

But those who know Lumbrera say there is no doubt she believes in the supernatural.

Maria Antillon, a close friend, said the defendant frequently talked about her fervent belief in spiritual healers and curanderos - fortune tellers or witchcraft doctors prevalent in Hispanic culture who have the power to bless or curse a person's life.

``She told me several times about witchcraft and things she believed in like curses,'' Antillon said. ``She used to tell me that she felt her mother-in-law had cursed her. She said if you believe in curanderos they will get to you. If you don't, they won't.''